


We lean, like gardens toward light

by Luddleston



Category: Voltron: Legendary Defender
Genre: Character Study, First Kiss, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-08-18
Updated: 2016-08-18
Packaged: 2018-08-09 12:25:48
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,446
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/7801807
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Luddleston/pseuds/Luddleston
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Lance can barely remember his first kiss, but he's going to remember this one forever, whether or not Keith wants to kiss him again.</p>
            </blockquote>





	We lean, like gardens toward light

**Author's Note:**

> I wanted to write some dumb teenage boys being dorks and it ended up as a character study WELL that's cool. 
> 
> Stay tuned for more of me loving Lance.

Lance's first kiss had been when he was eight years old, with the neighbor girl from down the road, in the backyard behind his dad's pickup truck. The stickiness of the humidity matched his popsicle-stained fingers, and his lips were still dyed blue when his pigtailed best friend pressed her mouth to his. He was so surprised, he didn't even close his eyes like in the movies, he just laughed afterward, and chased her all the way to the creek so he could splash the chilly water on her until she punched him in the nose.

When the neighbor girl moved away, he never saw her again, and now, he couldn't even remember her name, but he still remembered his messy palms sticking to hers, the summer heat condensing on the back of his neck.

He remembered his second kiss better, mostly because he remembered the crawling feeling of lying to his parents that no, there wouldn't be any girls at that party, and yes, there would be parents home. In reality, it was a houseful of high school freshmen, all of whom were equal parts awkwardness and sexual frustration, and while it hadn't been Lance's idea to play spin the bottle, he wasn't complaining about it. One of the boys made them swear that if it landed on another boy, they were allowed to spin again. Lance agreed, mostly because all of them were gross, and he wouldn't even want to _think_ about kissing them. Maybe if they were more attractive, like the guy who'd been in his study hall last year, he wouldn't mind so much.

He didn't have to worry about spinning twice, because when the Mountain Dew bottle stopped, liquid sloshing back and forth, it was facing Brittany, from his first period math class.

Lance hardly remembered the kiss itself, because the cheering from the rest of the circle was loud enough to distract him from just about anything. He remembered being worried that her braces would cut his mouth open, but they didn't, and he put his hands on her shoulders and they both tilted their heads the right way and her sweater was as soft as her lips. He was wiping strawberry lip gloss off for the rest of the night, or at least until the next round, when Allison had to kiss him, and she tasted like Doritos.

He'd like to say he lost track after that because he romanced so many babes he just couldn't keep them all straight, but high school was somewhat of a romantic drought for Lance. He went to a few more parties he shouldn't, and in the fuzzy aftermath of a few beers someone's older sister had bought, he made out with a blonde girl who was his buddy from the track team's cousin from out of town.

God, he was kind of a dick. He didn't even know her _name._

It was the closeness, Lance decided, and the feeling of another body pressed against his, that he liked so much. He was always a physical kind of guy; he liked hugs from his friends more than most of the bros from the Garrison did (Hunk was a _blessing)_ and he thought cuddles were the most important thing in the world, but he wasn't about to tell anyone that. It was just the feeling of being close to someone that did it for him.

At least, that was what he was telling himself about why the hell he kept looking at Keith's lips and thinking, _god, maybe I should lay one on him,_ when he should, in reality, do anything but that. Keith just sometimes looked good after a long round of training, his hair scraped out of his eyes and a ring of sweat around the neckline of his T-shirt. Lance didn't mind that he was sweaty--it made him look like he was working hard, and it also made Lance feel less disgusting about his own post-workout state.

He wasn't going to kiss Keith. Keith was not a hot girl, ponytail or not, and Lance was _not_ going to kiss him. Besides, Keith hated him.

And if he wasn't going to kiss Keith, he was instead going to stare at Shiro pretty much all day to make up for it, because Shiro was not only the greatest pilot in the world and also the universe, he was six feet of good hair, deep brown eyes, and flawless abs, and Lance was starting to realize that maybe, he wasn't exactly as straight as he'd thought in the tenth grade.

When he walked in to Keith sitting in the control room of the castle-ship, a blanket wrapped around his shoulders, staring out at the stars none of them, not even Pidge, recognized, he realized that he was definitely not as straight as he'd thought in the tenth grade. Keith's hair was wet and curling against his neck, like he'd just gotten out of the shower, and he wasn't wearing his jacket or his gloves, his hands in particular looking incredibly bare. Had Lance ever seen him without his gloves on?

"Hey?" he said tentatively, and Keith turned his head to look, but didn't say anything. "What... um, what're you doing?"

"Dunno," Keith said, "couldn't sleep."

Lance could sympathize--he'd _just_ gotten used to Eris's day-night cycle, which was a good six hours shorter than Earth's, and then they launched into space, where there was nothing to keep anybody on a normal sleep schedule. He plopped down onto the floor next to Keith. For a long moment, he scrambled for something to say, wanting to do anything he could to end the awkward silence stretching between them and expanding to fill the room.

"Lance," Keith said, and Lance felt the bubble of his uncomfortableness pop like Keith's voice had taken a pin to it. "I want to tell you something."

"You, uh. You can just say it, you know," Lance said.

Keith looked at him with a strange kind of seriousness that he normally only directed at Shiro, and Lance suddenly got this twisting coil of nervousness stuck in his belly. "I didn't forget about you. I remembered who you are, and yeah, you annoy me, but I didn't just forget."

"I didn't really think you did, I mean. I thought you were just being a dick."

Keith frowned. "I'm trying to be _nice."_

"Well, you're not doing a very good job at it."

Keith burrowed further into the blanket and glared a bit more. "I don't understand you," he said.

"The feeling's mutual," Lance said, but he was looking at the stars outside and his sentiment was more of a clarifier than an insult.

"I think I'd like to," Keith continued, very suddenly, looking out the huge windows, the dimmed glow of the control panel lights turning parts of his face red, other parts blue.

"Wait, what?"

"Lance," Keith said, then cut himself off, making a frustrated noise in the back of his throat. "Promise me you won't punch me in the face."

"Why would I punch you in the--"

Keith must have thought that was good enough, because he put both (ungloved, _cold)_ hands on either side of Lance's face and kissed him, his lips so firm and perfect that it had Lance overenthusiastic enough to press harder, cuddling up against Keith and doing _exactly_ what he said he never would. He sucked on Keith's bottom lip, and Keith pulled back staring at him with a look that was 90% eyebrows and 0% "Lance, I want to kiss you again."

"What was that?"

Lance had a half-dozen snarky things he could've said, but the one that came out was a somewhat confused, "am I supposed to answer that?"

"I mean," Keith said, fumbling for words and looking at Lance like he might somehow find what he wanted to say on Lance's eyelids if he stared hard enough. "It was. I haven't."

Lance realized just then that this had been Keith's first kiss. That Keith hadn't expected him to get _into_ it like that, and. Wow. He felt like an idiot. "I went too far, didn't I," he said.

"Either that, or not far enough," Keith replied, "still haven't figured out which."

"How 'bout... hmm, we could just," Lance fitted an arm around Keith's shoulders, keeping his touch as light as possible until Keith responded with a blanketed arm around his waist, "yeah. Like this."

"That's good," Keith said quietly, and Lance didn't even care when he leaned his damp head on Lance's T-shirt.

At least one of them was going to remember his first kiss. Lance was gonna make sure of that.

**Author's Note:**

> Come yell at me on Tumblr @luddlestons


End file.
